Science, technology and innovation

In 2013 the Italian R&D expenditure/ Gdp ratio increased compared to the previous year; in absolute values, spending on research and development passed from 20,502 million euros in 2012 to 20,983 million euros in 2013.
The number of patents per million inhabitants continued to decrease.
Internet use has reached saturation nearly all over Europe. In the last three years over nine out of ten Italian enterprises with at least 10 persons employed accessed the Internet using fixed broadband connections.

In 2013 R&D personnel (measured in terms of full-time equivalent units) amounted to 246,764 units, with an increase of 2.7 percent compared to 2012 and with a personnel/population ratio accounting for 4.1 R&D employees per thousand inhabitants. In 2013 the number of S&T graduates further increased and reached 13.5 S&T graduates per thousand residents aged 20-29 years (13.2 in 2012).

60.2 percent of individuals aged 6 and over access the Internet, but only 40.3 percent on a daily basis. The new generations access the Internet more often: the share of users progressively decreases among individuals aged 24 and over. Except for young people, there is still a strong gender gap characterising Internet users.
Since 2006 the share of households using a fast internet connection has remarkably increased, with nearly two-thirds of households using a broadband connection in 2015.